


Of Blondies and Goldies

by ThreeRavens



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Friendship, army days, ranch fic, sandbox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:54:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27961115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeRavens/pseuds/ThreeRavens
Summary: Another moment that got into my head and wouldn't get out. This time it was from a fic by Artemis3737, who was so kind as to let me run with the idea. My thanks!A story of friendship told in 8-ish? (by which I evidently mean 10) pieces.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 30





	1. Though we may roam...

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the end of the first chapter of 5+1 Injury Check by Artemis3737 (here altered slightly to fit my story's timeline):
> 
> "Jack."  
> "Yeah?"  
> "I hate you."  
> Jack smirked. "Back at ya. But you're about to hate me even more, because for a month I will be giving you full body checks after every patrol."  
> ~~  
> "Do I have to take the pills? I'm feeling fine," Mac said, just 3 hours into the military hospital visit.  
> "I will make it two months," Jack threatened, dead serious.  
> "I would love to have those pills!" the blond kid told the medic, who was very confused.  
> "Good EOD Tech!" Jack said, smirking again at the glare sent his way.

“Alright, last chance to tell me about anything before I find it on my own back at base.” Jack had his scrawny bomb nerd backed up against the closed door of the humvee.

“You’re really going to keep doing this after every single patrol for a month?” The kid rolled his eyes.

“You thought I wouldn’t keep my word? You really gonna insult me like that? I’m offended, man.”

“No, I didn’t mean...” he trailed off in a sulk. “Just, why do you even care?”

“Whatever my own personal feelings about being paired with the world’s slowest and annoying-est bomb nerd, we’re a team with a job to do. And I care about anything that might compromise our ability to do that job. Capiche?”

He was answered with stony silence.

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Three... two... “

“Why should I, anyways?” the kid snapped, glowering at Jack’s boots with such intensity he almost wondered they didn’t burst into flames.

“Well, I can’t exactly give you a biscuit. But if you tell me now I won’t have to strip you half-naked in the middle of base...”

“I twisted my ankle.”

“Good EOD Tech! That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” He gave the kid space to open the passenger door, ignoring the death-glare sent his way, and once he was perched sideways in the passegner seat Jack bent to carefully unlace the proffered boot.

“It’s twisted alright but hey, it doesn’t look too bad. If this is all we won’t even need to check you in at medical this time, just ask for an ace wrap and some cold packs.”

“Let’s go then.” His partner’s voice was tinged with relief, and with something else. Jack wasn’t sure he liked that something else, but he got in the driver’s seat and started the ignition.

Half an hour later they were pulling into base.

“See you at mess,” the blond called as he slammed his door shut and tried to nonchalantly limp off towards barracks.

“Oh no you don’t!” Jack was after him in an instant. “I said you wouldn’t have to check in, not that you wouldn’t have to go at all.”

The kid didn’t stop walking, didn’t give so much as a backward glance.

 _Shit_.

“There’s something else, isn’t there.” Jack grabbed his collar and hauled him to a stop. “Gear off. _Now._ Or I’ll do it myself.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes, but obediently shucked his vest and jacket, and pulled up the hem of his shirt. “Satisfied now?” He reached for his jacket again.

“Turn around.” Jack grabbed the kid by the shoulders and spun him around, and jerked his shirt back up. “I take it back, you have been one naughty EOD Tech. You are going straight to medical, and I am checking you in and _sitting on you_ until the doctors are 100% sure you don’t have internal bleeding from getting kicked in the kidneys.”

~~~~

“You take ‘hurry up and wait’ to a whole new level, kid.”

“Sorry I can’t conjure up bad guys to keep you entertained.” Even muffled and distorted from being several feet inside a drainage pipe, the sarcasm was fairly dripping from his voice.

“Now, you sure about that? ‘Cause I’d say you did a pretty good job of it this afternoon. Four guys armed to the teeth popping out of a sewer manhole right under our noses! That doesn’t happen every day.”

“Would you just shut up and let me work?”

“No can do.” Jack picked up right where he left off: “But don’t go getting any ideas now, smart-ass. I only got 36 days left stuck in this hellhole, and none of them’s gonna be my last on this earth, you mark my word.” He paced another arc, scanning the dark streets through his night-vision scope, and checked his rifle for the millionth time. “One thing though, you’re supposed to leave fighting the bad guys to me. You got one job out here, and you’re too pathetic at it to even think about trying to take over mine. Speaking of jobs, you done with that one yet?”

“It would be done sooner if I didn’t keep having to take the flashlight out of my teeth to answer you.”

“Since when do you hold your flashlight in your teeth? Isn’t that why you have two hands?”

The only response was a mirthless flashlight-muffled chuckle.

An image flashed through Jack’s mind.

“Oh damn it, kid! That is _exactly_ why you’re supposed to let me do all the hard work!”

It was nearing zero-threehundred hours when Jack finally hauled his partner back to the bunks after a brief stop at the base hospital. As soon as the kid was off his feet he went completely limp, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, gangly legs outstretched, his back halfway propped up against the wall. He was staring vacantly at his boots, like he was wondering whether it would be worth the trouble of trying to take them off before getting into bed.

Tufts of sandy-blond hair were sticking straight up on one side of his head from leaning against a number of things which were definitely not designed to be used as pillows: the inside of the drainage pipe, the window of the humvee, and most recently the back of one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs in the non-emergency waiting room. Pulling 22-hour days was something Jack had had time to get used to. The army’s most junior EOD Tech? Not so much.

For all of 30 seconds Jack manfully resisted the urge to muss the kid’s hair.

It was a losing battle.

He _might_ have deserved it when his bantamweight bomb nerd who currently had one arm in a sling grabbed his wrist and promptly had him on his knees on the floor in a joint lock.

Jack tapped his thigh with his free hand. “Alright, alright. Got the message.”

The only response was an icy blue glare.

He tugged at his immobilized wrist a little, wincing as it sent a jolt through his elbow. “C’mon now, give it back...”

~~~~

“Jack?!”

“In the flesh!”

“I thought you shipped out.”

“Almost did. But then I realized, that poor little bomb nerd ain’t gonna make it two days in the Sandbox without me watching his back.” Mac opened his mouth to speak, but Jack kept right on going: “Now don’t go getting big-headed, this ain’t about you. It’s a matter of personal pride, ya see. ‘Cuz every single damn one of my explosion geeks has made it home alive. And you may be the dumbest, stubbornest one I ever had to put up with, but I am not about to let you ruin my perfect record.”

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence,” the kid said, rolling his eyes.

“It’s not every overwatch can keep a self-sacrificing idiot like you alive. I started the job and I don’t trust anyone else to finish it.”

“So... are you going to get in the van or not?”

27 minutes later Jack found himself sprinting after his wayward bomb nerd, trying desparately to keep the blond head in sight (why could the kid never seem to keep his helmet on?) as he wove through pedestrians, dodged cars and motorbikes, and veered around stalls to cut diagonally through the market.

“When I said I wasn’t going to let you go home in a box, I did _not_ mean it as a challenge, pal!”

As they neared the northwest corner of the square Jack was finally able to reduce the distance between him and his partner from almost-out-of-sight to in-sight-but-still-too-far-out-of-reach. For a few meters Mac had slowed to a jog, and Jack almost hoped the kid might have come to his senses and decided to let his overwatch do his job for once and keep him in one piece... but this was Angus MacGyver. He followed his partner’s gaze to take in the building before them: a ugly heap of concrete, four stories fallen down to three in places, cracked walls, narrow windows long-since shattered. “Oh no no no...”

Jack cursed under his breath as the kid kicked it back into a sprint, heading straight for the door.

“Heel! _Bad_ EOD Tech!”

~~~~

“Found it?”

“Yeah... I found it...”

“It ain’t good, is it. Can you disarm it?”

“I... well... I’m not sure.”

“Just get out of there, Mac. Those insurgents are on the move, looks like they’re headed this way.”

“No! I can’t just... Gimme five minutes.”

“I don’t think I got five minutes to give.”

Mac’s only response was silence.

“Well, hurry up, man.”

“Mac, we’re about to have company. Get outta there, like, yesterday.”

“I know, just another minute Jack, I just need to...”

“You do not have another minute! Once they make it to the stairway you won’t have a way out.”

“I’m not leaving until I... Alright, got it. On my way.”

“Run!” Mac hissed as he skittered around the corner. Jack didn’t need to be told twice. Behind them there was a sound of guttural shouting and tramping boots, but to Jack’s immense relief it didn’t follow them as they tore down the hallway towards the back exit.

“I knew you could do it, bud. Y’know, I –”

“The van. Now!”

“Okay, okay. Easy there, hoss,” Jack slowed to a jog as they came in sight of the vehicle, but his partner continued at a dead sprint, only stopping when he reached the passenger door where he stood bouncing on the balls of his feet. “You did disarm the thing, right?”

“Get in. Drive.”

Jack had a sinking feeling. “That’s not what you were doing back there, was it.”

Mac shook his head impatiently. “Didn’t think I could. Still don’t.”

“Still...?” Jack’s eyes landed on his partner’s helmet which he was carefully cradling to his side. He was used to finding the thing anywhere other than where it was actually supposed to be, but he was _not_ used to seeing it stuffed full of loops of wire and explosives. “You brought the damn thing _with you?!”_

“Get in and drive, dammit! We have to get it out of the middle of town!”

“Man you know how bumpy this road is. And this baby’s got nearly a full tank of fuel, I don’t think it’s a good idea to –”

“It’s not motion-sensitive, it’s got a remote detonator. Which is why I couldn’t disarm it. And you don’t need to worry about the fuel tank, Jack. If it goes off we’ll be dead anyways.”

“Was that supposed to make me feel better?” Jack asked rhetorically as he went around to the driver’s side. He sighed as he turned the key and the engine revved to life.

“How about the parking lot of the abandoned hospital?” Jack asked as they approached the intersection.

Mac shook his head. “Not big enough. We need to get it all the way out of town.”

Out of town. Ten more minutes at least. Jack spared an uneasy glance towards the device still cradled tight against his partner’s chest. “Man, you are like a dog with a bone!”

Mac shot him an icy glare and wrapped his arms more closely around his wire-and-explosive-filled helmet.

“Only, like, with explosive bones. Dogs are usually smart enough to go for the kind that doesn’t go kaboom.”

“Are you seriously –”

“Look, I know you’ve got a lot of science-y smarts inside that blond head of yours, but you don’t have the self-preservation instincts of a newborn puppy!”

~~~~

Two and a half years later than expected, four months into what would have been Mac’s third tour, Jack was finally on his way home for good. Oh, he would have stuck with the kid as long as it took, but he couldn’t say he wasn’t glad to leave the Sandbox behind. Only... he would have preferred for Mac to make the decision on his own.

They had been out doing sweeps with another explosives team when they stumbled into another one of The Ghost’s little death traps, and it was only thanks to Mac’s quick thinking that all four of them were currently medical discharges instead of KIAs.

“So, where are you headed?” He turned to his partner. Jack knew remarkably little about Mac, despite how much the blond could talk. Oh, he’d talk your ear off about particle physics, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, you name it, and sometimes he’d talk about his courses or lab work at MIT. But about anything before that, he was radio-silent.

So Jack was less than surprised when Mac shrugged and turned to look out the window, looking not down but up into the clouds. (Jack had offered him the aisle seat so he'd have more room for the bulky brace on his knee; he'd declined, probably so he could do just that.) Jack knew that kids joined the military at 19 either because they had everything to protect, or because they had nothing to lose. And this kid was definitely one of the latter.

“Well, ol' Jack Dalton’s heading back to the family ranch in the great state o’ Texas. Good life for an old soldier, growing hay, raising cattle, training horses.” He paused to stretch his legs out more comfortably into the aisle. “I’ve got a nephew who’s graduating high school in June: took him an extra year, but he’s the sweetest kid you’ll ever meet and I couldn’t be prouder. And my babygirl Lula’s due to have another litter of puppies in a few weeks. Pedigree Golden Retrievers. Been breeding them since I was a boy, it was one of my Pop’s little ‘pet’ projects, you could say.” He stopped to laugh at his own pun, earning an eye roll from Mac. “They’re some of the best dogs you can find. Intelligent, energetic, loyal... but they can have a real stubborn streak. Kinda like someone else I know.”

“What’s your connection?” Bleary-eyed from jetlag and dealing with the after-effects of a concussion, Mac had been squinting at the departures board for a solid two minutes. He sighed, grudgingly admitting defeat.

“5:37 to LAX.”

“A27. I’m A21, the 6:03 to Dallas. So we can camp out together in A2 for an hour and a half.”

They shouldered their duffels.

“Ya know, I never woulda guessed you’re a Hollywood boy.”

“That’s because I’m not.”

Jack raised his eyebrows.

“There’s more to Greater LA than Hollywood, Jack.”

“So if you’re not going to Hollywood, where are you going?”

A pause. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

Mac shrugged. “Never gave much thought to coming back.”

“Well, _that_ I can believe. But still, you’ve got to have _someplace_ to go.”

He shrugged again. “There’s my grandpa’s old house, out in the suburbs. I guess I’d be going there.”

“Is your grandpa still living there?”

“No. Died a while back.”

“Parents, then?”

A shake of the head.

“Siblings?”

“Only child.”

“Aunts, uncles, cousins?”

“Estranged.”

“Friends?”

“Away at university.”

“You’re really trying to tell me that you’re coming back from three years in the Sandbox and going to live alone in a dead guy’s empty house?”

No response.

“That is one bad idea, hoss. Take it from ol’ Jack Dalton, soldiers _do not_ go home alone. And soldiers do not _let_ soldiers go home alone.” Jack took an abrupt turn.

“Where are you going?”

Jack hooked his free arm around Mac's shoulder, trusting the cast to protect his wrist from too much jarring. “ _We_ are going to the Flight Services desk, because _you_ have a booking to change.”


	2. Be it ever so humble...

“Just get washed up, sweetie, supper’s almost ready.”

“Aw, thanks Momma. Smells good! You don’t know how much I missed your cooking.”

“You’ve told me that every day of every leave you’ve been home. I think I know at this point.”

“Well, I mean it every time.”

“I know you do, sugar. Now, is your Specialist with you?”

“Mac’s not back already?”

Mrs. Dalton shook her head.

“Hey Mac,” Jack called as he walked into the shed, “What are you still doing here?” Mac was half-sitting half-kneeling on the floor. The position was evidently intended to keep the pressure off his bad knee, but it had to be hell on his back.

“Working on the tractor engine.”

“It’s supper time. Aren’t you getting hungry?”

“Didn’t notice.”

“Momma’s expecting you back at the house, and she does _not_ like when people are late for her supper.”

“I’m just going to finish this up, alright?”

“And how long’s that gonna take you, huh?” No answer. “Are you trying to tell me the world’s slowest bomb nerd is going to have this whole thing reassembled in five minutes? ‘Cause I’m not buying it.”

“I have to get this done.”

“It’s not a bomb, Mac. It’ll still be there in the morning, and it’s not going to blow anyone up in the mean time.”

“If there were a bomb here I’d be the first to know.”

“But you’re still not leaving until this is finished?”

“Mm-hmm,” Mac nodded, flipping through his Swiss Army Knife for a different tool.

“Wrong answer, man. Now you’ve got five seconds to get up and come with me before I make you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Five.”

“You _really_ want to do this?”

“Four.”

“You don’t have to be my overwatch anymore, Jack, just let me be.”

“Three.”

“I’m not going, and you can’t make me.”

“I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. _Two.”_

Icy silence.

“One. Last chance here, Mac...”

“Fine.” He closed his knife and scrambled to his feet.

“Good EOD Tech!”

“Now what took you boys so long? Everyone else was here ten minutes ago, and supper’s getting cold!”

“Apologies, Momma. Mac here was still out in the shed, lost track of the time.” He rounded on Mac. “But he wouldn’t miss your supper for the world, and he promises it _won’t happen again_.”

“Is that so, now?” Mrs. Dalton scrutinized Mac with an appraising eye.

Mac looked back and forth between the two of them. “Yes, Ma’am!”

~~~~

3:47 am. Jack was awake. That itself wasn’t unusual; he often was often jolted out of nightmares at ungodly hours.

But he hadn’t been dreaming.

The house was quiet – a rarity even now. The four-bedroom ranch house which in his childhood was home to him, his parents, and his four brothers and three sisters was now occupied by Mrs. Dalton, who as matriarch of the household still slept in the master bedroom; his older brother Rob and his wife Angela in what used to be the older boys’ room and their two sons in the girls’ old room; and Jack, his younger brother Danny, and his orphan EOD Tech from the Sandbox in the same room he had shared with Danny and his other younger brother Will as a child.

Lula, lying at his feet on the bed, nudged his leg with her snout. “What is it, babygirl?” He swept his eyes over all four walls. The soft glow of the nightlight showed him the outline of Danny in one bed, sprawled on his stomach diagonally across the bed half under and half on top of his blanket, and Mac in the other, curled on his side, blanket in a heap. “There’s nothing wrong, Lula.” He reached out to stroke her head, but she pawed insistently at his arm. Jack was puzzled.

All was silent for a moment more. Then there was a whisper of blankets, the sound of labored breaths.

Lula whimpered softly, and hauled her heavily pregnant self up to sitting.

The nightmares. So they had come for Mac too, now. They often took a little while to kick in. Still, Jack had been hoping the 22-year-old would have a bit longer between the end of the waking hell and the start of the sleeping one.

Lula whined again, shifting back and forth on her haunches, her tail jerking erratically.

“Go ahead, girl.”

She wriggled her back paws under her bulging belly, but swung her head back to look at Jack.

“Go on, sweetie, it’s OK,” he coaxed.

She looked back and forth between them once again, torn. Finally Jack made a shooing motion with his hand, and she gave a soft yip and slithered down to the floor. Her nails clicked as she waddled across the room to haul herself up onto Mac’s bed.

“Good girl, Lula. Good girl.”

~~~~

Instead of heading back to the shed, Jack turned the tractor down the driveway, rolling to a stop in front of the old ranch house. “Hop out, Mac. Tell Momma I’m on my way.”

“I’ll come.”

“You’ve been on your feet all day, man.”

“So have you.”

“No point in us both walking half a mile back. Go on, now.”

Mac opened his mouth to speak, but then changed his mind. Without another word he swung the door open and jumped down to the ground.

Jack was pleasantly surprised to have won without more of a fight. He put the tractor in reverse and starting backing out of the driveway.

His relief lasted all of five seconds, before a glance to the front showed him his gangly EOD Tech striding purposefully across the porch to the front door.

The reason Mac had agreed so readily... was because he had a plan. Jack did not have the best associations with Mac’s plans.

“Look at you, you’re getting so big and strong! Yes you are! What a big strong boy you—Hey you, leave that alone!”

The whole walk back, Jack had been imagining all the places he might find Mac when he got back. This was the last one he would have thought of.

His impassive, standoffish EOD Tech was currently sprawled shamelessly on the floor, feet (one now sockless) kicked in the air, surrounded by a squirming mass of 3-week-old Golden Retriever puppies.

“You silly girl, that’s my sock! Oh hey, little guy. You want to come play too?”

Mac had surely heard the door open when Jack came in, but he wasn’t making any move to recover his dignity. He propped himself up on his elbow to redouble his efforts in the game of rope tug-of-war, now against two fluffy adversaries instead of one. Meanwhile his remaining sock had caught the attention of another pair of mischievous eyes.

“What is it with the socks? They don’t have the tensile strength to be rope toys, they don’t have the rebound too be chew toys...”

“Are you seriously trying to give a physics lecture to a puppy?”

Mac finally looked up at Jack. The corner of his mouth quirked. “I suppose I am.” He abandoned the game of tug-of-war and rolled onto his back to scoop the offending sock-thief up into the air. She wriggled happily, pawing his cheek and licking his nose.

And Mac laughed.

~~~~

Every other Thursday was Physio Day, when they drove together to the outpatient clinic two towns over for both of their appointments. Today, though, marked the end of their little ritual, because after ten weeks Mac had just been officially discharged. Jack still had a few months to go (shrapnel-obliterated tendons took longer to fix than a regular old torn one) but he would be making those trips alone.

Usually Mac would be fighting him for control of the car radio; but today he had let Jack blast his favorite station all the way to the clinic, and hadn’t said a word even though it was still going on full volume half the way back.

Jack reached over and turned down the volume. “What’s on your mind, hoss?”

Mac wrinkled his eyebrows, considering the question. Jack waited. Silence was a good sign: it wasn’t a reflexive ‘nothing’, which meant he just might be willing to talk about it.

“I’ve been thinking...”

Jack resisted the pull of his habitual sarcasm, and settled for an encouraging nod.

“I was five when my mother died of cancer. And after that... everything changed.” Mac turned to look out the window. “But the thing is, that day at the hospital is my first real memory. I _know_ that things were different before, but I don’t _remember_.” He paused for the space of a few breaths, then turned away from the window to look back at Jack. “I can’t remember having a place that I called home, that I called _my_ home. And I feel like it’s time to change that.”

Mac had, eventually, been persuaded to stick around for two more weeks, until the puppies were old enough to go to new homes. Jack still didn’t like the idea of his Sandbox EOD Tech going to live in a dead man’s empty house, but Mac had promised to look for a roommate at some point, and in the mean time at least he wouldn’t be completely alone. And everyone at the ranch house had seen how the reserved young man doted on the puppies. Mac had never mentioned having had any pets, but he had never mentioned a lot of things, and Jack was willing to bet there had been a dog at some point.

“You know there’s always a place for you back at the Dalton ranch,” Jack said as he opened the trunk and helped set Mac’s luggage on the curb at the airport drop-off. “And if you ever need anything, and I mean _anything_ , or if you ever want to talk, you just call ol’ Jack Dalton.”

“Thanks man, thanks for everything. Means a lot.”

Jack reached out a hand, and Mac took it in a firm shake, then much to Jack’s surprise pulled him in for a one-armed bro-hug.

Mac reached into the passenger seat for his backpack, then hopped back up on the curb to pick up the rest of his luggage.

“Oh, and one more thing.” Jack’s hand reached out and caught it before he even registered that Mac had tossed something at him. “Family don’t knock.”

Jack looked down at the little packet of paper in his hand. There was an address written on it in Mac’s loopy penmanship, and inside it... a key.

When Jack looked up the blond-headed young man was already nearly out of sight. Jack caught one last glimpse of him through the sliding glass doors of the airport entrance, duffel bag in one arm and dog-carrier in the other, before he turned the corner towards Departures and was gone.


	3. Epilogue: There's no place like home

Jack made it all of two weeks before he cooked up an excuse to go to LA. He got himself a seat on a flight that same day, and at 10:30pm he got out of the taxi and let himself in to the little AirBnB he had booked a few blocks from Mac’s place.

In the morning he stopped by the tiny local grocery for supplies on his way to the address written on the little packet of paper tucked into his wallet. He took it out now as he walked up the driveway, and with trepidation tried the key on the lock of the old-fashioned wooden door. To his relief it slid in easily, and when he turned it he heard the soft snick of the deadbolt retracting.

The house was quiet when he walked in. He had called ahead to let Mac know he’d be in town, but, like approximately 80% of Jack’s calls, it had rung and gone to voicemail and he hadn’t received any reply. He unlaced his boots, leaving them on the shoe rack by the door, and headed for the kitchen.

The window was cracked open, letting in the soft warm spring breeze. There were dinner dishes in the drying rack by the sink, and a mostly-finished mug of chamomile tea on the counter. It was, after all, only 8:30 on a Saturday morning. Days on the ranch started early every day of the week and Mac had never complained, but now that he was here it would be perfectly reasonable for him to enjoy sleeping in a bit. Jack set down his bag, took out his ingredients, and set to work.

Based on his assumption that Mac was still asleep, Jack was surprised 15 minutes later to hear a familiar high-pitched bark come in through the open window. He glanced out towards the street, then immediately turned off the burner and hurried to the front door, just in time to see the 3-month-old golden retriever pelt up the driveway with Mac -- wearing trainers, shorts, and a sweat-splotched gray tee -- hot on his heels.

“Jack!” he panted when he reached the door.

“In the flesh!”

Jack looked the young man up and down. He had a strip of KT tape along one side of his kneecap, next to the fine white surgical scar, but he stood on it easily. His hair was recently cut, still fashionably long but no longer shaggy like it had been starting to look back at the ranch. Even under the flush of exertion his fair skin was a healthy peach-color, and though the faint purple thumbprints under his eyes spoke of some restless nights, Jack had feared far worse.

Mac ran his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair, making it stick up at even more bizarre angles. “E must have caught your scent. He got all excited about half a block back, and made me sprint the rest of the way.” He looked fondly at the puppy currently bouncing around Jack’s knees. “You knew Jack was here, didn’t you, E?”

“Is E short for Einstein?” Jack asked as Mac bent to untie his trainers. “Or Erdös, or E equals MIT squared or—”

“That would be ‘E equals M C squared’, Jack,” he interrupted automatically. “And good guesses, but no.” The blond young man looked up at him sideways, on corner of his mouth pulled up into a grin he was only half-heartedly attempting to conceal. “It’s E short for EOD Tech.”

Mac put his trainers on the shoe rack and straightened up. “I’m going to take a quick shower. And are those pancakes that I smell?”

“The famous Dalton family recipe!” Jack winked.

“There in ten,” he said, heading towards the stairs.

Jack looked down at the puppy still running in circles around his feet. “EOD Tech, huh?”

EOD Tech yipped happily and followed him to the kitchen.

Jack was just flipping the last pancake when Mac returned to the kitchen. Jack crossed the room to the table and pulled out a chair, steering the young man towards it.

“Sit.” Mac obediently let Jack push him down by the shoulders. Next to the table E crouched down on his haunches, whining in excitement, his rapidly-wagging tail sweeping back and forth across the floor.

“Stay,” Jack held out his palms at both of them and walked backwards a few steps before turning around and heading to the stove.

He returned with both hands full: with one he placed a plate piled high with steaming pancakes on the table in front of his blond-headed army partner, who enthusiastically picked up his fork, and with the other he tossed a bone to the golden-furred puppy, who caught it mid-air. “Good EOD Tech!”


End file.
